DescentBB

ok.. just read through the weapons. Very interesting ideas.

Where recharge times are concerned, I see weapons that were designed to NOT be fired 24/7. You have to be sparing a bit and watchful. This is very similar to MechWarrior. Things like Energy weapons are prone to over heating and can be off set a bit buy heat-sinks and alternating weapons. Rapid fire cased arounds are prone to jamming if continually fired.

We need to remember that CD IS NOT Descent. It's sure to be Descent-ish, but there are sure to be fundamental differences in the two games.

The Base weapon. Psionik. ... a very curious choice. I assume that it has something to do with the premise of the game? Very interesting idea. That would mean that in some circumstances, this weapon will not work do of a lack of moisture in the air.

Neo wrote:Only six guns? That makes the game kind of bland, don't you think? D3 you could only use 3-5 guns depending on which ship you chose. And Descent IV had about 30 guns!

30 guns would probably do the game more harm than good. Back in 1995 it could have been a selling point; these days though, the number of weapons depends heavily on the sub-genre, and you can always point to a game that has more (some of the third-party expansions for Mechwarrior IV have well over a hundred weapons, to name one). And it presents a huge problem; you have to balance each of those 30 guns, to make them all unique and useful, yet make sure none are excessively powerful.

Descent 1 did an admirable job of balancing the 10 weapons it had. Perhaps some were not used too much because they were difficult (Fusion), but for those who could they were well worth it.

Descent 2 and 3, however, lost that with a mere 10 extra weapons. They probably could have nailed it with a different approach however; in Descent 2 the emphasis was too much on supercharging the old lineup (which is of course going to make the originals look like they suck), and in Descent 3 the weapons seem to have been balanced for killing robots - where the ammunition of superweapons is an issue - versus competitive multiplayer, where generally speaking it is not.

Then, when you add another 10 weapons... the job gets more difficult still.

...you're going to hate me for asking this psionik, but are we still going to see the game (or at least a demo) this year? (I hope, I hope, I hope... )


If not, that's cool - I'm more than happy to wait util it's perfect, and from the sounds of it that shouldn't be too far away

All I want to know is should I stop holding my breath? I'm not going to hold you to any date you might mention trust me.

\"That means, the ship accelerats / banks / generally moves slower when the weaponload is high.\"

Awesome idea!

Interesting. Makes you play a balancing game between being loaded to the teeth and carrying very little - probably will make people retain just enough for a quick kill.

Wouldn't completely stop spawn-kills, of course, because the fact is you don't need much to take someone out.

Actually, there is one other way I see people playing the game with that mechanic; they would hoard up missiles until they saw someone, and every time a fight broke out it would start with people spamming missiles in a flurry. It would also encourage tactics such as lobbing, blind shots, etc etc...

Truth be told I've seen people do this already in D2 for a number of reasons
- They don't want the opponent to get their missiles
- They don't want to go out before they've used as many missiles as possible, since that improves the chances of nailing someone with it
- It's easier to kill people with some missiles - ESPECIALLY Smart/Homing missiles.

That measure would, in effect, just accentuate it. Whether it's a good thing or not depends on your opinion...

The inertia idea is indeed cool. I guess you could make it a checkbox option, for those who like it or not.

If carrying more weapons increases mass and moment of inertia, then there should be a button that lets you drop weapons.

heavy weaponload could also make nasty sounds (audible within the ship, not necessarily for others) because the engine is little overcharging. Gives you also a feeling what you do to your engines and how the load actually is.
The idea behind it is, that it forces you to act more intelligently while stalking / preparing for the next fight. Does it really lead to easy ever kill strategies? This should carefully be tested. It should bring back the dogfights!
Do we need more treads ?! Is it time for cd to find a pr manager ?!

Is the uplinkstudios website down? Will it come back?

I have no problems surfing the site - but think the site could contain more interesting stuff...

floppyfreak wrote:heavy weaponload could also make nasty sounds (audible within the ship, not necessarily for others) because the engine is little overcharging. Gives you also a feeling what you do to your engines and how the load actually is.
The idea behind it is, that it forces you to act more intelligently while stalking / preparing for the next fight. Does it really lead to easy ever kill strategies? This should carefully be tested. It should bring back the dogfights!
Do we need more treads ?! Is it time for cd to find a pr manager ?!

I don't think the weapon loadup = slower ship idea is a good idea. Too much thinking, not enough blasting and bashing. Stick to what is the most fun and don't complicate things any more then they already are in a 6dof game. That is my 2¢.

Krom has a point, I see his 2 cents and add my two as well.

and i have yet to see this in other fps games as well (unless you count mechwarrior, namely mw2, less weps = room for bigger engine/jump jets/both).

i think that not only would it encourage tactics like lobbing and missile spamming on first sight of another player, but it would get annoying, too.
maybe the ship sound effect would work, though.

and i havent been able to get to the uplink studios site either.

The site was temporarily down, try it again.

HighOctane_Jared wrote:The site was temporarily down, try it again.

Thanks

Einsiedler wrote:...the site could contain more interesting stuff...

ditto

Major update coming soon.

Woo-Hoo glad to hear it! Any updates at all would be more than welcome...just make it sooner rather than later please!

Could you give us a ballpark as to what soon means? Week? Month?

d3jake wrote:Could you give us a ballpark as to what soon means? Week? Month?

Year?

psionik wrote:Major update coming soon.

Congrats for making progress!

psionik wrote:Major update coming soon.

You got a publisher?

Waiting.....................

I am going to put it up this weekend, ready or not.
If it's not 100% ready im still putting up what I have.

Hooray! It'll go nicely with the new comp parts I\"ll be getting. Though I'll keep this box for testing CD on lower system.

You mean we are getting the GAME this weekend? Surely I've misunderstood?

Darnit, my joystick is on the glitch.

Kilarin wrote:You mean we are getting the GAME this weekend? Surely I've misunderstood?

Darnit, my joystick is on the glitch.

hehe....

I'm thinking this is more about media stuff. Not a game or demo.

psionik, you are busy working to become a legend. When you look around, what comes out these days, all the time needed is stil little time. It would really be interesting to learn, how a single man nowadays can design a whole video game
When CD is out, write a book about it!

floppyfreak wrote:It would really be interesting to learn, how a single man nowadays can design a whole video game

...Umm, I think Jared and the other people at Uplink may take exception to that comment

Though Psionik is bearing the brunt of labor on Core Decision at the moment, its been very far from a one man show. Everyone has pulled their weight.

And Psionik merely stated there was an update, he never mentioned anything of a playable demo.

Jared wrote:And Psionik merely stated there was an update, he never mentioned anything of a playable demo.

Ok, that makes sense, and gives me more time to replace my joystick.

wow this is interesting. looking forward to more info and media related to this game =)

Lets just say that we have taken steps to end the constant promise of updates and no delivery.

Very nice to hear. BTW, Untill the promised media arrives, I will check the DBB obcessivly. Just to warn everyone, and since wer'e close toe the end of the month it shouldn't be too bad on bandwidth.

Psi: If any of what you're going to post is video, I'll upload it to my website as a mirror for whatever source it is that you'll use. And post a link of Course.

I note that the CD page on Uplink's website is sending out a 404 error message, whereas before it just said \"Coming Soon\". Hope that means things are happening. (I know, I know - I'm impatient and pushy Just hurry up will you guys?)

hehe... I seen that too.

Maybe they took it down for the updates, who knows?

We shall find out soon.

*cuts tension in the air with a dull knife*

psionik wrote:Lets just say that we have taken steps to end the constant promise of updates and no delivery.

When I try to view the CD page, I get a pop-up asking for User Name and Password.

That would be because we are preparing to launch the new portal. Can't hide anything from you guys!

psionik wrote:That would be because we are preparing to launch the new portal. Can't hide anything from you guys!

Ohhhh, progress!